This is the additional floor space where BLADE Show 2018 placed 200 more booths and tables in the John A. Williams ballroom, which is adjacent to the main exhibit hall.

I am shocked at how big this room actually is. The vendors in this room, to include a heavy hitter like Cold Steel, made it a pretty good show all on their own.

With nearly a thousand exhibitors, this year’s show is definitely the premier event in the knife world.

I was afraid the impending BLADE Show West (October 2018) would draw off some of the makers from faraway places such as Japan, but Kiku Matsuda, Hiroaki Ohta, and others were right where they were in previous years.

From the sheer size of today’s “Friday crowd,” you couldn’t dismiss the Forged-in-Fire-Effect the industry has been seeing–a renewed interest in making and collecting brought forth by the popular, and sometimes maligned, tv show.

Whatever the reasons, burgeoning vendors or pop culture promotion, it was heartening to see everyone from little kids to guys in mobility scooters plying the crowded aisles.